Released in the Philippines just a couple of days ago with a price tag of Php 24,990, Samsung Galaxy A8 is the biggest and most expensive member of the Korean company's metal-clad, midrange A-Series smartphones.

This new phablet has several cool features that are sure to delight users. But its strongest suit would definitely be in the aesthetics department.

For one, it flaunts a real metal - anodized aluminum - side frame that makes it look both durable and elegant while highlighting the device's ultra-slim 5.9 mm construction. With such measurement, the Galaxy A8 is - notably - the thinnest smartphone that Samsung has released so far.

On its face, it sports super narrow 2.5mm side bezels framing its massive 5.7 inch Full HD SuperAMOLED display. These ultra-thin bezels and well as this stunning screen type are a real treat to get on an upper midrange Galaxy release as the company usually reverses these for its flagship level models.

Equipped with an extra-large display (that puts it well within the phablet category), Samsung Galaxy A8 is an ideal device for media consumption like viewing photos and watching videos, for fast thumb-typing, as well as for browsing websites and reading e-books.

As for the phone's imaging capabilities, Galaxy A8 has 13 MegaPixel autofocus main camera at the back with LED flash and Quick Launch support, which lets you fire up the camera anytime simply by double clicking the home button.

The main cam is complemented by a 5MP snapper in front with wide angle lens that's perfect for taking selfies whether on your own or with friends. If you wish so, you may also use the main camera to take self-portraits with a downloadable camera plug-in from Samsung that automatically detects you and your friends' faces and enhances your facial features and skin-tone for more attractive shots of yourself that are ready for sharing on social networking sites.

At its heart, Samsung Galaxy A8 runs its TouchWiz-flavored Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system with a powerful 64-Bit Octa-Core Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 chipset, handles multitasking with 2GB of RAM, and has 32GB of internal storage that you can beef using the phablet's secondary Hybrid nanoSIM slot that also doubles as a microSD card expansion slot.

While these aren't particularly the best set of internal hardware that you can get on a smartphone in this price category (in fact, there are sub-Php 20,000 smartphones like the Lenovo Vibe Shot and Xiaomi Mi4i that have similar innards), they should be good enough to make sure that Samsung Galaxy A8 will be free from constant stuttering and lags.

And the same thing can be said about Galaxy A8's non-removable 3,050 mAh battery. It's just alright. I mean, it's not the biggest pack powering a phablet but it's certainly good enough to provide decent uptime; Around 17 hours talk time or 51 hours of music playback, according to early reviewers.

Now, should you check this release? If you're a big Samsung fan and you're dreaming of owning a phablet made by the company but you're not yet ready spend more than Php 35,000 to get either the Samsung Galaxy Note5 or the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus, then you'd do well to consider this model. At Php 24,990, Galaxy A8 is far more expensive than some smartphones from international sellers having the same internal hardware -- but it does have that massive SuperAMOLED dislay - complemented by the opulent build and design of its shell - to more than make up for it.